I haven’t been in the mood to write much. I don’t know why. Maybe I feel vulnerable.

I surprised myself and attended all of the workshops with Max Strom I signed up for last weekend.

After “The Healing Power of Forgiveness” lecture Max presented, I stayed awake late into the morning hours because I couldn’t sleep. I wasn’t really thinking anything, so it’s not like my thoughts were keeping me up. I was just filled with energy.

So much energy.

I still actually feel that way, even though I have been extremely tired/wiped out at the same time.

I actually told some of my friends about Max coming to town because I had already shared about his “Learn to Breathe” DVD on Facebook before I ever knew he was coming to town. So one of my best friends and her husband decided to come with me for the Forgiveness lecture.

It was nice to not be there alone. It’s been so long since I haven’t felt alone in this healing process (if this process is a healing process and not something else I don’t even know yet.) There are still times I feel really alone, but the structure of my life –and me– is changing. I’m a lot more open these days, more uninhibited, more real (I’d say,) and less ashamed.

(As an aside, I did get to use my special Forgiveness Tissues I mentioned in my last post. I even got to share them. )

The shame waves still take me down every once in a while, but they don’t seem to be as high as they used to be. Not as powerful. Either I’ve gotten stronger or the shame has become weaker…or maybe both…which is extremely cool.

I’m able to step back when it feels like I’m about to go down and say, “Wait a minute, that’s shame and it’s not really mine.” Or…which isn’t quite as fun (but no less useful) I am able to step back and look at what I’m experiencing and see where I need to step up and grow beyond myself a little bit…or a lot, but with realistic expectations.

Oh, this growing thing.

I have therapy tonight.

I sometimes wish I could just punch things into a computer and put all the pieces together to make them whole again without all the elements having to actually go through getting where they need to be. But then it wouldn’t be real life, and real life is what I’m after. I don’t want just a virtual life.

The part that is so hard is looking up, making eye contact and not just watching images interact on a screen.

In his workshops, Max actually spoke on how with the technologic developments that are going on robots are becoming more human and humans are becoming less so. It’s easy to see and say that, harder to take responsibility for our humanity and counteract it.

Especially when so many people are hurting.

It’s sometimes seems easier (and better) to stop breathing and let the robots do it for us.I know it’s a lie. Most things that steal true, authentic life away is a lie.

But lies can be enticing, even when you know what it is.

The lie says you can do that (in this case, not breathe) and still get away with it.

LIE.

Anyway, Max didn’t talk about lies. He talked about breathing. And he didn’t just talk about it. He demonstrated and taught how to do it too.

I like lectures, but I’m always getting myself caught up in these damn experiential things! lol

A word about Max Strom that I haven’t really read anywhere else. He’s known as a respected yoga teacher and somebody who teaches deep breathing (the kind that actually gives and sustains real life,) but nowhere have I ever seen that Max…is for the children.

Yes, Max is a teacher who gets it.

Hang in with me here as I try to explain…

He understands about the hurt and pain and struggles of our lives, but he’s not blind to the origin. Our pasts…and most commonly, our childhood. Without saying a word about creepy inner child stuff (Inner child stuff is not really creepy, but it has always just creeped me out.) he speaks to the inner child (through teaching breath, it’s the inner child part of us who I think has stopped breathing, and we just follow along…my words, NOT Max’s…so this part is my spin on what I learned from him this weekend)…and then once he sees that he had taught our inner child (or teenager) how to breathe…he reaches out to the children who are really in our homes.

I can’t even name the times Max directly spoke about the children in our lives and in our world who need us to breathe down the defenses of our armored lives, our armored chests.

‘Breathe down the defenses’ are my words too, but that’s how I interpreted what I learned. And…it’s what happened in the space of the hours I was in workshops this weekend and what I’m committed to working on from here on ever-after.

I’m sure there’s a lot more that will come out as a result of what I learned. It’s hard to put it into a summary of words because breathing (in my mind) is such a right-brained thing, even if breathing deeply takes some focused effort. Maybe the effort lessens some after you’ve done it longer. It’s too bad we take one deep breath when we’re born and then it seems they get shorter and more shallow as life progresses.

My morning started with a cortisone shot to my right knee, but the day was about so much more than that, and my journey is SO much BIGGER. So this post isn’t going to be about pain today. At least, not in the sense of darkness.

I’ve been wanting to share some other things about my journey!

See, when I get in a sort of crisis mode a lot gets left behind. It becomes just about the struggle to survive and even if there is a lot of magic or light or magic AND light, sometimes that gets left behind in the wake of it all. It’s what darkness does to light.

It starts to feel even more like I’m alone because there are things happening everyday that are part of the journey that, sadly, don’t tend to make it to the front page at those times. Sometimes the bits of light get blasted. And, in all the struggle…well that’s what the struggle is to some degree. To keep the light shining bright through the darkness. The darkness likes to create it’s own light, and that’s an awful feeling to be trapped in that. It tries to make everything in the world about itself…so black and tasteless. To me, I actually think of black licorice, but that’s only because that stuff makes me puke. And if you like black licorice then I’m sure you can think of something else that is so bad you can’t stomach it. (So black licorice companies, don’t sue me, ok?) It’s not actually about black licorice!

So, several weeks ago I did this thing. My therapist had asked me something like, “What makes you happy?” Loaded! So he made it my assignment to answer that question. And it might be the first therapist assignment I’ve ever received that I didn’t think was bunk and a complete waste of my life. (And it is the ONLY assignment my therapist that I’m speaking of has ever given me…so…I worked on it.)

This is part of my answer.

My Creation Station (Made out of an old built-in gun cabinet)

Tada! Here it is! This is what I came up with. We recently moved into this house with built-ins in the room we spend the most time in. It’s called the Great Room and I especially think it is great now because it’s where my “Creation Station” is. I used to have a whole room in the basement where all of my supplies were, and I had a great big table to work in…But it was not a great room. It was dark and cold. It had no windows. It housed the furnace and water and sewer pipes. It was sort of hellish and there was a lot shit in there. Sorry, but I’m being kind of literal. So I think the whole time I had access to that area for my artwork I produced maybe one painting, and didn’t even finish it all the way. I hated that room! And guess what? It was the room dedicated to -me-. Eew!

So here I am now, in the Great Room with my Creation Station. There’s a pull-down desk attached beneath the gun cabinet, and it’s perfect for me. I had already decided that a Great Room is no place to store the bills and do lousy paperwork, so the desk sat empty and unused since we moved in…until it became what it is.

And notice the LIGHT!?? Seriously!!! Uh yeah. I think so! So I’ve wanted to share this space that the light brought me into, but I’ve been stuck in hell lately, so I haven’t had much of a chance to get a word in edgewise.

So nice to meet you!

And then, I think I might have had a couple of breaks to share this with you, but I was a little embarrassed that I hadn’t actually really created anything here in this “perfect place for me to create” space, so I was resistant to the idea.

Well, folks…today it happened.

My baby is getting old enough to crawl around and explore toys on her own a bit, and I’m able to sit right next to her basically while I’m at my Creation Station, so I WENT FOR IT!

And guess what, my baby girl actually seemed to like it that I was doing something besides being stressed or anxious. Imagine that! 🙂

And this is what came of it so far.

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It’s not done and it’s not for “fine art” purposes. Fine Art is reserved for some other space. Definitely not here in my Creation Station. So please note in advance that is not what anything I do here will ever be about. But if what gets worked on here turns out “Fine,” well, then, I most certainly will not complain. Fine is a little boring if you ask me though. And, after all, it is a 4 letter word that starts with F. So let’s cut it to 3 letters. Let’s shoot for “Fun” or for 5 letters to get “Enjoy.” Or…two 3 letter words if we just stick with “Joy.” Joy is good!

Yes, that works.

In the end when the face was recognizable as a face, I was holding my little daughter…and she got a great big smile and wanted to hold this creation.

I’ll take that as a sign I’m possibly on to something right.

Oh, and I didn’t even get to share that my babes has started giving kisses too (her first ones ever) and guess who got the VERY FIRST KISS!?

Moi! That’s right. She gave me her very first and very heartfelt kiss the other day all on her little own. Ah, heartmelt! Pure Joy!

“People subconsciously often feel that healing is selfish when in fact the inverse is true. To heal ourselves emotionally is our duty, our obligation, to those that we love and those that love us. There’s no greater gift that we can give them. We affect people. We can AFfect people or INfect people. Let’s affect people by breathing deeply.” ~Max Strom/ Learn to Breath DVD Intro

I really hope you’ll take the time to watch this 8 minute video even if there’s no time (or desire) to read this post. I believe the content of the video is important and relevant to everyone so just skip over the rest of my mumbo jumbo here and click ‘play’.

Max Strom is a well-known yoga teacher in the United States. I’ve heard his name before during my dabbling into yoga over the years. I’ve never taken the time or effort to actually really research any of the leading national teachers, but now that I am actually starting and being effected by a yoga practice and want to know more about what it’s doing and the whys and hows I’m investigating a little more in an effort to be more conscious about what I do and become in my life.

I’ve looked up a few “names.” It seems like they all have a sort of similar flavor and a definite ego that is blatantly or subtly denied. I find that denial annoying at best and dangerous at worst. So, tell me if you agree, but this guy I “found”, Max Strom, seems to be on to a good honest thing here. I am discerning, I think. I don’t automatically just buy into crap just because someone has somehow managed to win a popularity contest. I’m impressed with his simplicity. And there’s something to be said for a sort of guru of a guy who can just be practical and make good sense.

The stuff he says here about breathing is what I know for a fact to be true. I know it’s true. It’s readily proven. But it doesn’t really make the practice and application of breathing easier for me.

This video is actually the introduction to a DVD he has out titled Learn To Breathe (To Heal Yourself and your Relationships). It’s about how our breathing and mind and emotions are connected. He talks about the storage of grief in our body. He talks about changing the breath to change feelings. But he says what he says a lot better than I do, trying to say what he says, so just watch him instead. You have time. If you’re reading this far you and me both know you have time.

I purchased this DVD on Amazon tonight. I’ll give my personal review in the next week or so after it arrives.

Today I texted my mom a few pictures of my baby girl. I have not seen my mom since the day I had to call the police on her while she was at my house.

That was 4 months ago.

Our relationship has ended, but sometimes she texts me still. Sometimes I make a short reply, mostly just to keep the texts from escalating. And there is a piece of me that doesn’t want to completely finish off our relationship forever. There is a piece of me that hangs on. Tight. But sometimes I can’t tell if it is like a tooth that is hanging by a thread and will inevitably one day be completely lost or more like a broken bone that will someday refuse.

A child never stops wanting their mother. At least, that’s what I’m guessing so far.

Sometimes that desire is so deeply buried, but there seems to be something in a human child (even once grown) that always aches for the completeness of that bond. When the bond isn’t there it disrupts everything.

I guess I probably don’t really even mean a biological mother. I think I’m talking more about that mother figure. But it’s pretty hard to find a figure who fits the bill who is not an actual mom (and I consider adoptive mothers to be an actual mom, since they really are)-Somebody actually invested at an oceanic/organic level.

But maybe at the same time all the actual mother stuff really isn’t all that I think it is. I just don’t know. Where I’m sitting it probably doesn’t really matter. I’m avoiding the topic all-together by trying to figure it out.

As I type this now my mother is texting me more and more questions about my daughter. “Does she have teeth yet?” “Is she crawling?” Various comments about how she looks.

I already start to feel too much weight of the connection. The danger. The heaviness. The stress.

But now my daughter is waking up from her nap and I need to be there for her.

Who changes the toilet paper roll in your house? What does it mean if you are OR are not the toilet paper changer? Does it mean anything? Does it have something to do with the general hierarchy of your house? Or did God just create some people to be TP guardians and some people to not be?

Are you the type of person who even cares if there is toilet paper (or the equivalent) easily accessible after you use the restroom? Do you always look first to see if there is toilet paper handy before you sit down? Who buys the toilet paper in your house and who makes the decisions about what type/brand/style/design characteristics to choose? The person who replaces the TP or the person who doesn’t?

If you are the person who frequently (or always) replaces the empty toilet paper roll with a new one, do you think anyone would notice…or would the TP holder just sit there empty for eternity until you put a new roll in? If you are the TP changer in your house does it really bother/irritate you that if anybody else grabs a roll they NEVER bother to actually insert it into the holder so that it can be rolled out instead of having to hold on to the whole roll (and which always falls out of your hand and rolls across the floor at the most inopportune time, of course.) I mean, it’s called a ROLL of toilet paper because that’s what it’s supposed to do, and that is why TP roll HOLDERS were invented!

If you are a person in your house who never changes the roll (EVEN WHEN YOU SEE IT IS EMPTY AND THE ROLL RAN OUT ON YOUR LAST USE) why don’t you take the effort to put a new roll on before you leave your visit to the restroom? Whyyyyyy? For the love of God, WHY!!??

I just need my mind to settle. Thanks!

Please somebody tell me I am not alone!

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